


Now That I Know You More

by Anonymous



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Clarke Griffin, F/M, Fluff, Professor Bellamy Blake, a teeny bit of smut/kink but it's really just a dash, absolutely over-the-top lovey-dovey nonsense, like really sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Some very sappy/cheesy ramblings about Bellamy being absolutely head over heels in love with Clarke.Bellamy has always been a gifted speaker, rarely at a loss for words. And yet all the words in the world seem inadequate when he’s confronted with the desire to tell Clarke how much he loves her. Still, he does his best.He tells her heaven is redundant now that he knows her and she laughs softly with a blush on her cheeks and reminds him that it’s no great loss, he was never religious anyway.





	Now That I Know You More

**Author's Note:**

> Title/ quote at the top from Loveless by Said The Whale

_ How could I love you less, now that I know you more? _

Bellamy is proud of his way with words. It's a skill that serves him well as a classics professor, and his ability to captivate and inspire students ensures him a fulfilling livelihood discussing and exploring his passion. He discovered the joy and power of a well-told story early on in life, when he was just a boy and his little sister begged him to stay awake with her when she was too afraid of the nightmares that haunted her sleep. Regaling her with ancient myths and legends helped ease her into dreams of exciting adventure and heroics. The sense of gratitude Bellamy feels towards words and stories for that and more is unlikely to ever disappear, and he doesn't want it to, not after everything they've done for him. 

In ways both big and small, Bellamy feels that he can depend on his ability to articulate what he wants to say. His card inscriptions would make any hallmark employee green with envy and he has a toast on hand for every occasion. His friends know that there are few problems they can’t find the courage to solve once he’s sat down with them and given one of his signature motivational speeches. Though he's never been the kind of man to monopolize a conversation, it's more than fair to say that he is not often at a loss for words. With one very significant exception, that is. 

Clarke has changed his life for the better in countless and immeasurable ways, he can hardly fault her for introducing him to the feeling of being speechless. She can vanish coherence from his brain with as little as a fleeting stroll across his mind. When he wants to tell her how much he loves her he finds the extensive vocabulary he's spent his life building suddenly inadequate. He tries to anyway, and can always manage to string together at least those three little words, but then she smiles and tells him she loves him too and any attempt to capture the feeling in his chest with letters and words and grammar becomes impossible.

Being rendered speechless isn't really so bad though. His tongue quickly becomes too distracted by her taste, too busy practicing fluency in another language, a wordless language, to bother with syllables. Though he'd known for long before he knew her that there were many ways to communicate beyond words, he finds his body saying things to her he never knew it was capable of. He holds her when they fall asleep and his heartbeat syncs up with hers to say, in the only way it knows how, that it will follow where she leads. 

Though by now he's learned that there's no cage vocabulary can build to truly contain what he feels for Clarke, he sees no reason to stop trying. He tells her heaven is redundant now that he knows her and she laughs softly with a blush on her cheeks and reminds him that it’s no great loss, he was never religious anyway. He wants to tell her that in some ways he thinks he is now, that of the many gifts she has given him, perhaps an understanding of the joy of worship is one of them. But instead he lifts her onto the kitchen counter, bows between her thighs and makes his humble offerings. 

He leaves for work before her, most days. Occasionally he has to head out particularly early, before she's even fully awake, so he leaves little notes behind to give her a small part of himself to wake up to. It’s a poor replacement for a morning kiss but he finds out how much she appreciates his scribbled endearments when she shows him that she’s saved every one in her bedside drawer. All his ephemeral gestures made permanent simply because she loves him. 

On the days she is awake she tells him to remember to wear his seatbelt when he drives to the university, even though it isn’t really that far, and he assures her that he will. Once upon a time he found thrill in small risks and rebellions, like driving without a seatbelt, but now that thrill pales in comparison to his desire to come home safely and in one piece, knowing she will do the same for him. 

On any given weekday she might teasingly call out, “Honey, I’m home!” when she arrives back at their small apartment. She works at a small gallery downtown selling art and curating their collections, and sometimes using their studio to make pieces of her own. 

“How was work, dear?” He banters back, rising from his desk to greet her. The papers that need grading will sit patiently until he returns, knowing he will not be able to focus on them until his ears have been reminded of the pleasure her voice brings. 

They share rambling anecdotes from their days and Clarke curses her coworkers when he licks his thumb to clean a smudge of paint from her forehead that has surely been there for hours. 

He continues to feel confidence and pride for his ability to communicate and move people with his words, and it is still a strong tenant of his identity. But at the same time, he feels no less like himself when he finds his mind void of coherence at the sight of Clarke on her knees before him. He whispers her praises with so much reverence it’s clear he’s been utterly consumed by her. She encourages him to pour his love into her, and swallows it whole. 

There is no greater bliss than the trust and vulnerability they indulge in with each other, and she loves him with her hands bound and her heart free. He pulls her blood to the surface of her skin in a trail of small circular marks that follow his path from the middle of her chest down her soft stomach. She will complain about having to wear a high-cut shirt to work the next morning but can’t hide her smile when she sees the evidence of his touch on her body in the mirror. He jokingly tells her that he only wanted to thank the blood running through her veins. 

There are bad days too, as there always will be. Sometimes they’re angry after a frustrating day at work, or sad on the anniversaries of tragedies they’ve endured, or grumpy and sick with that bug that’s been going around. On these days they take care of each other with a little extra tenderness, soft words and softer touches that often culminate in cuddles beneath the shelter of their covers. Bellamy melts into her chest when Clarke runs her hands through his hair and eases the tension in his jaw by tickling her fingers on the wiry hairs of his beard. When she’s anxious he pulls her bottom lip from between her teeth gently with his thumb, smooths the furrow between her brows with his lips. The cradle of each other’s arms will always be a safe place to hide when everything is just a little too much. 

They argue with each other sometimes too, because they’re human. Mistakes are made and things are said in the heat of the moment that they don’t really mean. Knowing someone as well as Bellamy and Clarke know each other means they also know exactly where to pull back their armors to expose the most ugly wounds. But they always find the strength to heal together and there is no hurt that won’t stand down and cower in the face of their forgiveness. Bellamy knows that regardless of the emotions involved, to better understand Clarke is to better understand his love for her. The more he knows about her, even her anger and worries and stubbornness, the more blurred the edges of his love become, fading into nonexistence until he finally sees that it is infinite. 

It used to scare Bellamy to think about his future, the closest thing to forever he will ever know. It seemed too big and uncertain and overwhelming to dwell on for long, but that’s another one of the things that’s changed since he fell in love with Clarke. Forever doesn’t scare him anymore.

He walks around with a small velvet box in his pocket for two months before he finally kneels before her and opens it up. She knows it’s coming, but she doesn’t rush him, not when she knows so personally of the time it takes to create. Bellamy puts thought into the words he puts into the world, just like she puts thought into the colours and brush strokes that shape her art. 

In the end, it happens at the museum on a chilly fall afternoon. They go to see a special exhibit on the terracotta warriors, built for the emperor who died of mercury poisoning in his quest for eternal life. Bellamy tells Clarke that immortality would be nothing but a curse if he couldn’t share it with her. 

“It’s lucky you’ll never have to then.” She says simply with a squeeze of his hand as they stare at the life-size statues. 

They wander the rest of the museum even though they’ve seen it all a hundred times before, but now Bellamy has an ulterior motive. He waits until they find an empty room, temporarily free of visitors and security guards, which ends up being tucked away in a small room of the gems and minerals exhibit. Between the glowing glass cases of priceless ancient stones, he gets down on one knee. He’d thought a lot about what he wanted to say in this moment, but in the end he decides to let tradition speak for him. Generations of lovers have gifted him this ritual to demonstrate his devotion to the love of his life. Silhouetted by glowing opals, he only says,

“Clarke Griffin. Will you marry me?” 

She says yes with tears in her eyes and follows him to the floor to hold and be held by him. He wants nothing more than to stay there with her but there’s one more step to complete. 

“I think this is where I put the ring on your finger.” He says. “It’s kind of a tradition.” 

“Who am I to stand in the way of tradition?” She holds her hand out and lets him slip the modest ring on her finger. “It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful.” He says, like the cheesy romantic he is. But what he really means is, my heart sighs in relief when I look at you. Please let it know that peace for the rest of its days. 

With glowing giddy smiles on both their faces, he leads her to his all time favourite section of the museum. The Ancient Greece collection is small, but it’s where Bellamy’s love of classics was first born. Money had always been tight when he was growing up, but for a few formative years of his childhood his mother had made sure they had a membership, and they’d spent countless weekends learning and exploring. 

Staring slightly enviously at the carved stone torso of a young Dionysus, Bellamy can’t help but sigh. As a young man his body had looked not unlike that, all firm and chiseled muscles. Age has softened him body and soul from the hard young man he once was. Because she knows how to follow the train of his thoughts, Clarke tucks herself into his side and subtly slips her hand under his shirt to rest atop the softness of his stomach, warming her perpetually cold fingers. With a kiss to his clavicle she whispers that she loves everything about him, and that there’s no shape she would rather sculpt than his. Her giggle brightens every colour in the room when he echoes her words back to her in front of a nude and perky-breasted Aphrodite. 

Bellamy’s heart skips a beat, maybe even two, when Clarke casually muses as they leave that their future children will never have to want for bedtime stories. Who needs a library card when you have a walking encyclopedia of ancient myths for a father. He teases that they’ll never need a camera with a mother who can draw so perfectly, but he’s surprised the words make it out of his mouth around the lump of love caught in his chest. 

It doesn’t take long before they both have rings on their fingers. Bellamy never quite gets over the smile it brings him when he sees the plain gold band on his finger.

They get a little older and Clarke gets a little, and then a lot, rounder. Their friends tease that he glows as much as his wife does, but there simply isn’t any containing his joy. 

Their son is pulled warm into the world, screaming and crying. Clarke collapses back against Bellamy’s chest even as her arms extend, reaching for the child who now exists outside of her for the first time in both their lives. Bellamy brings his arms around her to echo the cradle of her arms for their baby. He suddenly isn’t sure he’s simply a person anymore, as much as a vessel for all the love and devotion that bursts from him for the two people in his arms. Their son is still crying, but Bellamy understands. He and Clarke are too. 

“It’s hard to be small, I know. I know, little one.” Clarke whispers to the new and tearful little person, and Bellamy recognizes from stories she’s told him that these are the first words her mother said to her. “Everything is big and old and you’re small and new, with no way to explain how you feel, what you want, no way to go where you’d like to go yet.” She kisses his tiny, impossibly small little nose and continues, “So you have to trust us. I promise you can trust us little one. We’re going to take care of you. We love you so much.” 

The baby calms as his mother speaks to him and his father gives him his finger to hold onto. It’s no problem that he has no concept of words yet, as there aren’t any in the world strong enough to capture the magnitude and wonder of the love that surrounds him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! I know it’s a little over the top and all over the place and there’s a lot of mistakes and awkward phrasing, but that's basically me in a nutshell so there's no surprise there.


End file.
